What Trump Said in the Meeting That Started “Moron”-Gate

Trump and Tillerson attend a meeting with Malaysia's Prime Minister on September 12th.

By Chris Kleponis/Pool/Getty Images.

During the campaign and into his presidency, Donald Trump has displayed an alarming lack of knowledge around the topic of nuclear weapons. In a Republican primary debate, it became clear that he had no idea what a “nuclear triad” was; he seemed confused about why the U.S. doesn’t use nuclear weapons if it has them; he has made provocative comments about South Korea and Japan becoming nuclear powers; and he’s equivocated on using a nuclear weapon in Europe.

His peculiar mind-set was on full display during a meeting with the country’s top-ranking national security officials this summer, when Trump reportedly advocated for what would be the equivalent of a tenfold increase in the U.S. nuclear stockpile. Citing three officials who were in attendance, NBC News reported Wednesday that the president said he wanted to expand the country’s arsenal in response to a slide charting its size over the past seven decades. According to the report, Trump referenced the peak of 32,000 warheads in the late 1960s and said he wanted to return to that level. (Currently, the U.S. is estimated to have 4,000 warheads in its stockpile.)

As Trump’s advisers were forced to explain, any increase in the size of the nuclear stockpile would violate a number of disarmament treaties and the decades-long nuclear doctrine. “You don’t get in trouble for modernizing. You do get in trouble if you do one of two things: if you increase the numbers . . . [or] if you build a new type of weapon that is prohibited by a treaty,” Joe Cirincione, a nuclear expert, told NBC News. Officials told the outlet that there are no plans to expand the stockpile, although a modernization plan is in the works.

According to two people familiar with the discussion that spoke with NBC News, the meeting was a follow-up to one the day prior that ultimately proved unproductive. After the first meeting, the thinking was, “Maybe we need to slow down a little and explain the whole world” to Trump, one source said. It was reportedly this second meeting that prompted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to call Trump a “moron”, though it’s unclear whether that comment was in direct response to the president’s take on nuclear weapons. The president, meanwhile, reacted well to the story.